Bakersfield,
CA - March 06-08, 2009: Tory Green and the High Speed Motorsports team
came into the 51st anniversary of the March Meet with every intent
of winning the event and getting a jump on defending their 2008
NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Racing Series Top Fuel Champion title.
Things didn't go exactly as hoped but with a good qualifying
position and second round loss they are still looking good with
three events to go for the 2009 crown.

As defending champions, Green
and the team were in high demand for pre-race publicity and media
appearances. On Thursday the car was featured for the annual
Media Day with prominent city and state officials and all the
local TV stations and newspapers in attendance.

With most of the team including
driver, Troy Green in transit, representing HSMS was CEO Dale
Singh, co-crew chief and test driver Sean Bellemeur and Team
Manager Tom Shelar.

Steve Gibbs and Tom Shelar.

The car was also debuting
a new sponsor, RMS Healthcare out of Nevada.

After arriving Thursday night,
Troy Green managed to make a 5:00 a.m. curtain call to do a live
morning news program with Kate Larson of KBAK-TV to promote the
event.

With the first qualifying session
not scheduled until 2:00 p.m. the team was in laid back mode
dealing with a cold and cloudy morning.

How many people does it take
to pack a chute? This morning it took three plus a couple of
advisors.

Troy Green took delivery of his
latest generation Bell helmet but did not use it for this event
as it did not have the wireless communicator installed yet.

Friday - Qualifying
Session One

First of three sessions: Friday,
2:13 p.m. Under cool, cloudy skies the call went out from starter
Bill Condit to 'Fire the first pair', and the pro side of the
51st March Meet was underway. However, it was apparent early
on that following a week of rain and cold weather, the normally
tight Famoso track was not ready for the 3000 HP fuel cars. Low
track temp and lack of rubber made for an interesting first session.

Following some major down time
for Horan's crash and a couple of oil downs, Green and Jim Murphy
were the last pair to take a shot at the tricky track.

Backing up from the burnout
under the direction of Walt Stevens.

Bellemeur gives Green his distance
to the staging beams then Crew Chief Brett Johansen waits for
the signal from Murphy's team that they are ready to move in.

The car left good but
broke the tires loose about 150' out.

Green did a quick pedal
job and tried to save the pass.

After more skating Green, knowing
they had two more shots on Saturday, aborted the run and coasted
through with a 6.26 at just 186.79. Murphy got very close to
the left guardwall and shut off as well.

Back in the pits the crew did
their standard maintenance to get ready for session two Saturday
afternoon.

In session two Green got the
more favored left lane and was paired with Brad Thompson who
was at his first event following a horrible crash at Boise in
June of 2008.

Green left hard and had no problem
keeping the tires stuck and in the center of his lane.

Green stopped the clocks with
a nice5.822 at 261.78 (top speed of qualifying) to move
up to the #3 spot.

Saturday - Qualifying
Session Three

5:38 p.m. It was cooling fast
and five Top Fuel cars rolled into the lanes for the last session.
With only 16 cars left running, everyone was in the show and
with the weather change there was not much opportunity for most
of the cars to improve their positions.

One of the five was Troy
Green and he had the track all to himself.

The car had a decent
leave but was a tad slower on the 60' time.

Although the best run of the
session, Green's 5.933 at 252.38 was a tenth shower than the
previous session so he ended up in the #4 hole for eliminations
on Sunday.